Monday, March 23, 2009

A dialogue homily done right

Archbishop Charles Chaput celebrated the 6:30pm Mass yesterday at Denver's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.  In the course of giving the homily he told the congregation to imagine that old scenario where they had just died and were now standing in front of the pearly gates and St. Peter had just asked them why he should let them in.

The archbishop then took a hand-held microphone out into the congregation to collect responses from 3 people after which he went on to deliver the rest of his homily.

According to my stopwatch the 3 lay people spoke for a total of 15 seconds, while the entire homily lasted just over 20 minutes.

Here in DOR a "dialogue homily" usually means that the priest or deacon speaks for no more than 2 minutes and is followed by a lay person who "develops the theme" for another for 8 to 10 minutes.

My thanks to the archbishop for demonstrating what the Church really means by the term "dialogue homily."

Listen to the archbishop's homily here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bishop Clark would say all these other Bishops are interpreting the law wrong, while he has received a message from God that he is doing it right.